Pastoral psychology

Paul Barrett Rudd

The project in ministry described in this paper is a study of Congregational Expectations of Pastoral care. It was conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Ministry degree at the Lancaster Theological Seminary in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The purpose for making the study was to provide information to the Presbytery of Baltimore and its member churches and pastors regarding the attitudes and expectations of lay persons, in both leadership and non-leadership capacities, in the area of pastoral care and counseling. Second, the project was selected in order to better understand the concerns of church members whom the candidate is training students to serve through Clinical Pastoral Education. Finally, I selected this type of project in order to learn and utilize descriptive research techniques.

Rupert Neblett

The present research project of bibliographic modality and field research has its fundamental purpose to evaluate the importance of mental health care in pastors, ministers, leaders, and laity who have levels of responsibilities in human resources administration in the different denominations of Christian families.

With the understanding that "without mental health, it is not possible to have good spiritual health". This research has been motivated by the level of stress and its consequences of emotional situations that the COVID-19 pandemic has promoted.

As a result, an educational conference was held on Saturday, March 20, 2021, under the theme: "Leaders in Christ, Anxiety, Post-traumatic Stress, and Depression". This Conference was held in one of the church facilities where 38 pastors participated. It was found in the post-conference evaluations that 50% of the participating pastors and ministers presented a high level of stress.

An action plan is proposed that entails improving mental health of the Pastors, to immediately address the inadequate conditions that harm all those ministers and leaders who are in charge of human resources authority responsibilities in the churches by carrying out workshops that lead to developing the guidelines to put into practice strategies that lead to mental health.

Dennis B Smith

This project is designed to provoke new ways of understanding and using vocabulary familiar to the body of Christ so that the body as a whole and individual members of it might discover new avenues of hope, peace, and direction. "Newness of life" are the words used by St. Paul in Romans 6:4. The contributions of "Natural Systems Theory" toward unwrapping this Gospel promise are emphasized and explained in this project.

This project is intended to be a readable and useful aid to others in pastoral ministry as they seek to guide and coach their respective congregational systems in discovering "the peace of Christ" in the midst of everyday life.

Verlyn D Hemmen

This paper offers a method for pastoral counselors to utilize in healing individual and corporate anxiety. The model uses the modern therapeutic technique of Dr. David Grove in conjunction with the biblical psalms of lament.

David Grove maintains that people use metaphors to describe past traumatic experiences, and that these metaphors provide the key for healing these wounds, or the "wounded child within," in the past where they first occurred. Grove's therapeutic process emphasizes careful attention to the office setting, healing the wounded child within in the past, allowing the client's use of metaphor to express the trauma, and strict regard to the "clean" language used by the therapist. Grove also contends that the wounded child within is "frozen" in time, and the therapist must help guide the client through and beyond that experience so that healing may occur. This is achieved through an u nderstanding of the information stored in the child within, the memories which describe the environment outside the child's body, and the bodily boundaries described in metaphors.

Donald A Amidon

This book describes the use of Intensive Journal Writing as a spiritual development mechanism for Vietnam War combat veterans who are Post-traumatic Stress Disorder victims.

Chapter One describes the trauma of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and addresses the therapeutic task of healing.

Chapter Two presents a description of the physiological and psychological effects of stress. Effective coping mechanisms and stress management techniques are evaluated.

Chapter Three reviews the biblical concept of prayer and the implications of spiritual development for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder victims. Attention is drawn to the response of God to prayers of petition.

Chapter Four reviews theological perspectives which pertain to Intensive Journal Writing as a psychological and spiritual development resource. As the revealed activity of God becomes the work of redemption, healing activity is defined.

Chapter Five presents the Intensive Journal Writing technique of Ira Progoff. The use of this Journal Writing system as a part of a Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Rehabilitation Program is described. Special consideration is given to the spiritual dimension of journal development.

Chapter Six demonstrates that Intensive Journal Writing is a productive means of spiritual development. The deepening character of Journal Writing is described as a method of stress reduction, spiritual development and healing.

Larry L Foster

Effective pastoral leadership can be understood as a healing modality from the point of view of family systems theory. Thus the process of self definition becomes a leadership strategy for clergy as well as therapists.

This paper integrates family systems thinking as it addresses the issues of ministry today, particularly the leadership issue.

The Introduction reflects on Jesus through systems concepts, looks at the "call" of clergy through a fable, and focuses on common clergy stories operating in three interlocked systems. Chapter I introduces systems thinking through Bowen Family System Theory . Chapter II briefly describes the application of family theory by Edwin Friedman to the religious community. Chapter III utilizes a qualitative methodology in the use of three case studies focusing on clergy salary, a father's death, and supervision of an intern. Chapter IV explores a perspective on a theology of leadership.

Carl R Gillett

This project is intended as a demonstration of how the therapeutic style and techniques of Milton H. Erickson can be utilized in a process of spiritual direction.

Chapter One is devoted to a discussion of the subject/object split as an issue for belief and theology. Both theological and psychological sources are presented to explicate the problem.

Chapter Two presents the work of Milton H. Erickson and sets forth the procedural foundations of his techniques. Some biographical information about Erickson is included.

Chapter Three sets the phenomenon of hypnosis within the context of the Christian religion and demonstrates some affinities between the two as well as noting some antagonisms.

Chapter Four discusses the subject/object split as one of the mind's defenses against the presence of God and introduces the concept of "facades" as functional perimeters of the conscious mind.

Chapter Five offers a model which demonstrates Ericksonian techniques applied to the process of spiritual direction and shows how this helps people to move beyond the facades explained in Chapter Four.

Chapter Six relates Ericksonian approaches to pastoral therapy through a process of spiritual direction to form the basis for a spiritually directive style of pastoral therapy.

Wesley E Kiel

This paper deals with the role and identity of the pastoral counselor, first, as it has developed in Scripture and in the history of the church; and second as it can be fulfilled in a parish setting.

The first part of Chapter One examines the Biblical content of the term "pastor," emphasizing that both the Old Testament and the New Testament describe the role of the pastor as being the shepherd of the whole flock and its individual members. The second part of the first chapter explores the development of pastoral care in the history of the church, noting how it both molded and responded to the dominant theological and cultural themes of each period.

Chapter Two is a brief history of the development of the modern pastoral counseling movement. This chapter demonstrates that the movement came about in an attempt to incorporate new psychological theory and clinical practice into education for ministry.

Chapter Three uses a survey of current pastoral counseling literature and the results of interviews which I conducted with pastoral counselors to describe the current orientation of the pastoral counseling movement.

Chapter Four suggest ways that pastoral counselors may recover or strengthen their pastoral identity. This chapter explores the meaning of ordination to the pastoral ministry, with special consideration given to the ministry of Word, Sacrament, and Order.

The final chapter demonstrates some of the ways in which the special skills and calling of the pastoral counselor may be used in the parish and addresses some of the objections which are raised to the practice of counseling by parish pastors.

Glenn H Chapman

This project-thesis proposes a correlation of Kohutian self psychology and Pauline anthropology as a resource for the theoretical articulation and clinical practice of pastoral psychotherapy. The paper consists of five chapters and a bibliography.

Chapter One presents evidence of increasing signs of narcissism in contemporary society from sociological, psychoanalytical, and theological sources. Pastoral psychotherapy's growing interest in addressing narcissism via Heinz Kohut's self psychology is also discussed.

Chapter Two summarizes the life and work of Heinz Kohut. The chapter discusses basic theoretical and clinical psychology of the self concepts, and describes the special relevance of psychology of the self for pastoral psychotherapy.

Chapter Three discusses selected aspects of Pauline anthropology. The chapter emphasizes the theocentric perspective of Paul's anthropology; summarizes important themes in Paul's view of humanity in relationship to God; and discusses psychoanalytic interpretations of Paul and his concepts.

Chapter Four combines exegetical insights from Pauline texts with basic concepts of Kohutian self psychology to present a five-point correlation between the theological perspectives of Paul and the psychoanalytic perspectives of Kohut.

Chapter Five provides clinical examples of the validity of the proposed correlation. Individual, marital, and group therapy cases are discussed in reference to the five-point correlation. A conclusion assesses the validity of the correlation and makes suggestions for further study.

William E. E Buckeye

Can a pastor increase his or her own self-regulation and self-differentiation as a pastoral leader by integrating an understanding of one's own family system, the historical functioning of the congregation being served, and the pastor's most meaningful passage or story from the Bible? Will these three often disparate pieces weave together into new understandings that can improve the pastor's own functioning? This project is designed to begin to answer these questions.

Chapter One presents the history of the development of Murray Bowen's Family Systems Theory and the eight main concepts of this theory.

Chapter Two will be an in-depth examination of my family of origin which will discuss the patterns of family functioning I discovered as I completed my family genogram, similar to a family tree.

Chapter Three will briefly examine the history of one of the congregations I served in an attempt to discover the roots of that particular congregation's functioning.

Chapter Four will be an in-depth examination of the biblical account of the patriarch Jacob/Israel.

Chapter Five will integrate these three elements, my family story, the congregational story, and the biblical story, to demonstrate how the common elements that existed in all three of these stories led to a "Eureka" moment for my life and ministry.

Chapter Six, the concluding chapter will describe how other pastors, if they are already familiar with Bowen Theory and family emotional processes, may begin to apply the approach described in this paper within their own lives and ministries to increase their ability to regulate anxiety and self-differentiate within the life of the congregation.